


What I Get Given

by joycecarolnotes



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: (that one tagged by request), A lot of emotions!, Dubious Consent, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Semi-Public Sex, Weird Relationship Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 12:17:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11989620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycecarolnotes/pseuds/joycecarolnotes
Summary: There's something Jared likes about being told to earn it.





	What I Get Given

**Author's Note:**

> A ton of people contributed to the creation of this fic in one way or another; I hope you don't mind seeing your lovely names listed alongside it. Thank you not_the_marimba, antiquitea, reserve, mitochondriencocktail (I kept up my end of our pact after all!), and ladollyvita for inspiration behind the title, which is taken from Bjork's "It's Not Up to You."
> 
> I'm terrible at tagging things but listed what felt the most... egregious?
> 
> ETA: I added "Dubious Consent" as a heads-up by request, but everything that happens here the characters are super into, even if that - like it is for humans! - is sometimes complicated.

It starts not long after he rejoins Pied Piper. A Tuesday afternoon in Richard's bedroom. Not a time, admittedly, when secrets are usually forged. When Richard says, "I thought I fucked it so bad, christ, I thought I lost you" and Jared tells him, perhaps too forgivingly, "no, no, Richard darling, I'm still here, I'm still yours, don't you worry your pretty little head about it." 

Richard sits on the edge of his desk chair. He undoes his belt, his pants. Wraps the loose end twice around his bony knuckles.

"Prove it then," he says.

"Pardon?" 

"Show me," Richard says, stuttering over the words. "That it. That you. That you still - "

"Love you?" Jared supplies helpfully - for he is helpful and helpless in turns and sometimes not much else - and before Richard has a chance to reply, Jared has dropped down to his knees in front of him like a church boy awaiting the sacrament.

There's something he likes about having to prove it. About being told to earn it. About the sense that Richard is measuring his worth. He likes that it's akin to working. That there's a clear goal here. An end result to strive for. As a college boyfriend once told him, _you suck dick like it's a job interview_. 

He swallows Richard down as deep as he can take it. Keeps his eyes open until they water, focused on Richard's face. There's a bruise below his eye, still, and Jared aches to soothe it. To soothe him. To make it all better again. 

There's something he likes about being needed, and he can't get enough of how needy Richard is, right now. "Oh come on," Richard whines, and "please, Jared, don't stop, you can't stop," and Jared counts each word, each shout and gasp and shudder, like punching numbers into an adding machine. The way Richard knits a hand in Jared's hair and tugs it. How Richard's thighs quake and spasm under the tight grip of his hands. The obscene little moans he wrenches from somewhere far, far - perhaps heretofore undiscovered - in the back of Richard's throat.

Jared has always done much with little; these are the resources at his disposal now. His mouth. His tongue. His hands. The way he'll let Richard have any part of him he desires, whatever it takes to prove it right.

 _Yours, yours, yours, Richard Hendricks_ , he thinks. He spells the words out with swipes and twists of his tongue.

Above him, Richard gasps, "it's so good, Jared, what are you even - fuck - so good - so - you're mine." He tangles his fingers in Jared's hair and pulls it. 

There's something he likes about it: the way Richard's loyalty takes on these dark shades of possessiveness. That Richard read the handbook, and wouldn't let him quit when he tried. Jared relishes the feeling he might never escape, not even if he wanted to, that Richard would keep coming back for him like this. He digs his fingers into Richard's hips, and swallows, and swallows, thinking how grateful he is to never be allowed to go.

\--

It's their secret. 

His and Richard's. 

And Jared has had many of them:

Secrets he paid dearly for knowing, secrets he wishes he never told. There were the secrets his mother made him keep and the secrets Uncle Jerry made him keep and the secrets Gavin Belson made him keep and the secrets Richard made him keep, before. Secrets that were fun. Secrets that meant he was part of something. Secrets that felt like they would eat him up inside if he never got to tell them. Secrets buried so deeply he couldn't tell them if he tried.

He has a different sort of secret now, and it's a thrill, and he is ravenous for it. The mischievous look in Richard's eye across the crowded workroom. A hand brushing his beneath the kitchen table, or as Richard passes him in the hallway, against the small of his back. Laid over his "accidentally" when he reaches for his teacup. Double-meaning sentences exchanged among mixed company, a secret language only they get to speak. 

Jared sneaks into Richard's room after hours, and he gets down on his knees or he climbs under the covers, and he carries Richard with him to secret places - magical places - places Richard's never been.

When Richard learns that Jared had been applying for other jobs - and god forbid, worst of all, actually has an offer in hand from one of them - he is livid. Outraged. He throws a fit about it, storms all day around the house, berating Jared to anyone who will listen and refusing to hear reason, refusing to acknowledge that Jared only submitted his application after he'd resigned from Pied Piper, insisting on accompanying Jared to a meeting where he'll turn the offer down, in person, face to face. 

"That's not how these things usually work," Jared tells him. "It's perfectly acceptable to communicate my disinterest via phone or email." But if it makes Richard feel better, he goes along with it all the same. 

The meeting is terribly awkward. 

In his bed that night, though, Richard is hungry for him. He moans his name, and holds him by the throat, miraculously desperate, and tells Jared not to quit, and not to leave, and not to stop, not ever ever ever -

And Jared knows how it feels to be a secret: kept.

\--

Jared awakes turned on - unbearably so - from dark dreams he does not care to remember. Richard reaches for him under the blankets. Finds him hard, and takes him in his hand, and strokes him. He kisses Jared with breath that is slightly sour, but which Jared delights in all the same. Jared buries his face in Richard's chest, his neck, his armpits. He would lap up the scent of unwashed Richard with his tongue if it were possible. Would drink it like a man in the desert, like someone dying of thirst.

"You like this, don't you," Richard says. It comes across less as dirty talk and more as a legitimate question. Richard testing Jared's limits, finding out if he has any, seeing how far he can take this. 

Jared inhales sharply. "Yes." 

He presses his eyes shut, overwhelmed with sensation. The slide of Richard's unusually warm hand against him. The flick of Richard's thumb against his slit on every off-kilter upstroke. The friction. Knowing it's Richard, the way Richard does it. A little indelicate, a little too fast. He's close, god, he's, he's -

And then it stops, as suddenly as it started. Richard's hand goes still.

"If you wanna... you know," he says. "Beg for it." 

"You mean orgasm?" Jared, panting, barely keeping his wits about him, somehow manages to ask.

"Yeah. Yeah. Beg me. If you want to come." 

And Jared wants to. Goodness gracious, gosh in heaven, he does. But there are concurrent feedback loops running in his brain, bouncing like loose marbles between point a ( _he wants me to beg_ ) and point b ( _which means maybe he doesn't actually want to do it_ ) and point c ( _Donald, Donald, Donald, don't go asking for something nobody cares to give you, something you so clearly do not deserve_ ) and they tie his tongue up so tightly they make it all but impossible to ask. 

"Too late," Richard laughs, and he takes his hand away, sounding viciously triumphant, and Jared sees, plain as day, that this was the end result he'd hoped for in the first place. He wonders what it is, this thing that haunts him. All the withholding ex-lovers, the work acquaintances who passed for friends, all the distant, unaffectionate foster families. What is it about him that made person after person in his life delight in denying Jared's needs.

He wonders, too, why it is that he likes it. Why it's better when he gets there, the more hurdles he has to cross.

"Now you'll have to wait all day for it," Richard says, and his smile is cruel and excited. "At work. The board meeting. Maybe longer. Maybe, maybe, fucking... days." He reaches down and runs the tips of his fingers over Jared one more time, as if to punctuate the sentence. "I want you to be hard all day thinking about this - about me - about - about how much you want it."

"Yes, Richard," Jared agrees.

"No one else can give you what you want. Just me." 

"Yes." 

Richard smiles. "Say it."

"Only you. No one else" - Jared blushes - "no one else can give me what I - " 

"What you...?" 

"What I need." 

"And you won't leave me. Not again." 

\--

The alert arrives via his smartwatch.

>> Five minutes. First floor bathroom.

>> Meet me.

>> Make up some excuse.

Jared swallows. Sure, for a moment, in the quiet of the boardroom, that it must have been an audible gulp. If Richard means to make him feel terribly turned on, well, then the trouble is, it's working. He catches Richard's eye across the table. That devious smile. His hair slightly mussed. He looks so casual - _underdressed for the board meeting_ , Jared thinks - in his maroon hoodie and sneakers and jeans. Hardly the picture of the dominant, domineering lover. And yet still Jared looks down at himself and shifts uncomfortably, painfully hard, on Richard's orders.

He is a terrible liar. This Richard knows well. Jared can sense his smug satisfaction as he stumbles over some foolish lie about an urgent phone call from a caring family member back home in Pennsylvania. A person he has to invent.

"My apologies," Jared mumbles, as he trips over Monica's legs. He is intensely aware of his own size: too large, taking up a share of space he is hardly entitled to. A nuisance, an encumbrance, something other people have to walk around. 

"Sorry, so sorry, my apologies, oh dear."

Jared thinks that maybe Richard will want him to touch himself, which isn't something he particularly likes to do. Not that he won't - when he gets a little desperate - and certainly he won't refuse if Richard asks him to. It's just that he'd rather earn Richard's touch, would rather work for it, and all the tacit approval it comes with. Because Jared wants to prove himself worthy. He wants permission to feel pleasure. Wants to win it like a promotion or a prize.

He stands by the sinks, his cheeks flushed, his whole body practically dancing with anticipation. Waiting, waiting, until Richard enters, looking manic and excited. He looks Jared up and down, then locks the door.

"You're here," he says. "Good. Okay."

"Of course," says Jared. "You asked."

"Waiting for me."

"Yes," Jared says. "Would you like me to, um - ?" He gestures vaguely, meekly, to the space below his waist. 

"What?" Richard laughs. "You think I got you here to watch you jerk off?" 

"Well it certainly seemed - " 

"No," Richard interrupts, threading a hand through his curls, a little frantic. He snaps his fingers, shifts his feet in place, like he isn't quite sure what to do next. "Shit. Not yet. I just - "

Richard pulls Jared nearer, suddenly, by the belt loops. His hands are so close - so achingly, damnably close - to where Jared most desires them. Not that he wants to admit that. Richard unbuckles Jared's belt, opens his pants and pushes them down below his hips. He wrenches a hand inside Jared's underwear and takes his erection out over the top of them. 

"Good." Richard nods his approval, and Jared lights up like a firefly, reaches for Richard's _good_ like catching a ring from a carousel, like it'll make up for all the attention he's never gotten. And now that he has a little, he craves more, more, more.

"I wanted to, ah," Richard says, "just wanted to make sure you were still hard for me." 

Richard walks to the door and unlocks it, but he doesn't leave. Instead he leans back against the wall beside it. Crosses his arms over his chest. 

_What else can I do to please you_ , Jared wonders.

"Yes, Richard?" he asks. 

"What if someone walked in and saw you like this?" 

"Richard," Jared says again, warningly, and his hands go to do up his pants.

"No, no," Richard orders. "Don't touch them. Put your hands behind your back."

"Richard," again, again, and this time it's a whimper. A pathetic, desperate sound. Jared closes his eyes, too ashamed to look at Richard, and the only other option is to turn back toward the mirror, and he can't bear the thought of seeing himself. He is painfully aware of his own hardness, and of his own helplessness, arousingly embarrassed and embarrassingly aroused. 

"Would you like that," Richard asks. Fresh. Snotty. "Would you want them to see how hard you are for me? Would the shame get you off?" 

Jared doesn't say it, but he thinks that it might. If that's what Richard demanded of him. He feels his cheeks flush, thinking of how he could never hide it, no matter what sort of trouble it brought him, as the blush creeps further, from his chest to his neck to his ears. He pleads silently, in secret, _oh god, god, please let this be over_ and also, _please let it never end_.

"You look so good like this. Jared, your skin, jesus. Get on your knees and come to me." 

It's hard to walk on his knees with his pants hanging off his hipbones, his hands tucked behind his back, almost woozy he feels so hot and humiliated, so absolutely terrified and turned on. But Richard asked it of him, and so Jared obeys. Across the bathroom floor in small increments, until he stops at Richard's feet. He feels dizzy with lust as Richard undoes his own pants, pulls himself out at eye-level, and Jared thinks about calculations and measurements and the distance from his eyes to the floor. He licks his lips in anticipation, waiting for his captain to issue further marching orders.

"I'm going to fuck your mouth."

"Yes," says Jared. 

"Open it." 

Jared lets his jaw fall open, and Richard pulls him closer by the soft hair at the nape of his neck. He thrusts his hips forward, in and out of Jared's mouth, hard and quick and savage, and Jared delights in the sensation, utterly still and motionless, expressing no desire of his own, as Richard beats bruises into the back of his throat.

"Fu - uck." Richard shivers. He tugs ever more violently at the roots of Jared's hair. "Anyone could walk in right now and see you - see you - see you - god, shit - see you swallowing my dick like this. You like that?"

Jared murmurs his assent around him, as best he can, a choked, barely audible _mmhmm_.

Richard pulls out suddenly, with a gasp, and he reaches down to stroke himself the rest of the way to orgasm, tipping Jared's head back by his hair. Faster faster, vicious, until he's streaking thick white stripes across the skin of Jared's cheek. Some drips down to foul up his nice Brooks Brothers sweater.

Jared reaches his tongue out, delicately, to taste it.

"Cool," says Richard, "good," when he's finally caught his breath again. "Now you stand up." 

"Gosh," Jared exhales, climbing to his feet. An odd, unavoidable little giggle. "The last time someone did that to me he tried to strangle me after. Don't worry though. I got away." 

Richard doesn't respond, maybe doesn't know how to, and so he just reaches for Jared instead. For a moment Jared thinks he is finally going to touch him, finally going to relieve some of the terrible aching pressure, the thunderous desire, the unscalable mountain of his need. Instead Richard does up Jared's pants, and Jared wishes he could help how hard he still is, how badly he still wants it.

But he's helpless against it.

He never really could.

\--

The rest of the day passes without major incident. In fact, Richard manages to push through a business partnership proposal of Jared's despite some resistance on the part of Bream Hall. Watching him fight for it reminds Jared of all the reasons he fell - stupidly, dumbstruck - in love with Richard Hendricks in the first place. 

"I'm so proud of you," he says, on the car ride home, smiling like his face could just split open. "I'm so lucky, to have you be the sun I revolve around."

"It wasn't, uh. It wasn't just me. It's us." Richard places his hand on Jared's knee, and Jared shivers. He feels his heart beating in his throat.

"Thank you for coming back," says Richard.

\--

By the time they get home, Richard can't seem to hold off any longer, and he sneaks Jared in the back way and pulls him into his bedroom. Bent over with his face pressed down onto the flat surface of Richard's messy desk. Stripped of his sweater and pants and shirt and underwear. His legs spread open. Richard's fingers press inside. They're so wet, so wet, and Jared is so wet he's dripping down the insides of his thighs. Richard sets a slipshod, clumsy rhythm, pressing his fingers upwards in chaotic, unpredictable thrusts.

"How much," he says. "How much did you think about this? Before we started... you know?"

"Gosh." Jared gasps. "All the time."

"And did you - did you - did you jerk yourself off while you thought about me?"

A blush inches down Jared's back, from the tips of his ears to the base of his spine, like flowers opening up towards sunlight. He grips the edges of the desk and shudders.

"Sometimes."

Richard leans over his shoulder. His eyes are so hot Jared can feel them on him. "Show me how," he orders. 

And Jared does. 

"What did you think about," Richard says, "when you...?" 

_On his back. His eyes pressed shut. The flimsy cot beneath him. Cold air in the unfinished garage. Moving his hands down, into his underwear. Clammy with sweat. The white-hot moment of shame and pleasure. Spilling over himself. Whispering silly, pointless words of gratitude and Richard's name into the dark._

_Oh Richard Richard thank you goodness yes._

"You," he answers. "You. Oh Richard. I thought about taking you in my mouth. Getting to find out what you taste like." Richard shifts his fingers inside him and Jared feels so good it should be criminal. "Oh god," he gasps, "oh god."

"What else did you do? When you. While you thought about me. Did you finger yourself?"

"Yes. A few times. I imagined it was you inside me."

"Like this?"

Richard slides his fingers out and in again.

"Yes." 

"Was there anyone else? Or just me?" 

"Just you. Only you. Richard." 

"And was it - I mean - was I - was I good?" 

Richard sounds so trepidacious, so insecure, even now, when they're so close, as close as can be possible, as his fingers slip out and he presses into Jared, slowly, inch by torturous inch. It's incredibly endearing.

"So good," Jared gasps. "Richard. You were all I wanted. Being with you like this. Who could ever be so fortunate. It's my wildest dream come true."

Richard reaches a hand around, moves Jared's own away so he can take over, and Jared feels so grateful, and he leans his head back so Richard can kiss his mouth.

"God you're pretty," Richard gasps.

Richard is pounding into him, braced against the desk, and his pace is relentless, and his hand on Jared seems to never stop. Jared feels all the muscles in his body go taut, approaching that edge he can't step back from, and is stricken with fear that he will ejaculate before he is given Richard's explicit permission.

"Oh, Richard, Richard," he struggles, panting, breathlessly, to ask. "Is it alright if I - um, Richard, may I - Richard - have I been good enough - now?" 

"Just a little longer. I know you like to wait."

Richard tightens his grip, impossibly, and Jared sobs and trembles. It's taking all his faculties _not_ to orgasm. And he wonders if it's possible he's so turned on he'll actually pass out. Richard's right hand moves faster against him; the other reaches up to lightly brace itself against Jared's throat. Richard's breath is in his ear and his voice is sweet and encouraging when Richard finally tells him, "okay, Jared. Now." 

Jared begins to say something that might be _thank you_ or _I love you_ but his voice quakes, the words disappearing into the void of a shattered moan as he comes apart with pleasure: the pleasure Richard's given him, and which he's worked for, which he's earned.

"Good," Richard says, as Jared's body clenches around him, pulling Richard right down after it. "Fuck you're good. How are you even like this. Jared. Tell me you're mine." 

"Yours, yours, Richard," Jared promises.

Richard pulls out quickly after he comes. He drops to his knees behind Jared and reaches out to lick him with a nervous, unsure tongue. Tasting himself, where he's starting to drip out of Jared and run down his smooth inner thighs. He slips another finger inside, pressing up against where Jared is most sore and oversensitive. It hurts. Jared bites down on his lip. He grips the desk so hard he expects splinters, just to keep himself somewhat upright.

"Oh not again. Oh Richard," he pleads, and his voice sounds wet and broken. "Darling, I can't."

"You think after all that waiting and all the stuff you've done to me, I - no. I'm just - what kind of asshole - I'm being fair here, Jared. Alright? You're gonna come twice, _minimum_. Christ."

Jared is used to being told how little what he wants - or doesn't want - matters. _For Richard's enjoyment_ , he thinks, _anything, anything, anything_. If this is what is asked of him, gladly, if this is what it takes. But what he finds out, as Richard licks deeper into him, and he gets hard and excited again remarkably quickly, is maybe all those pelvic exercises have actually been paying off.

\--

That night, pensive and exhausted, pressed up against each other in the too-small loft bed, Jared watches the moon cast delicate shadows over Richard's unusual face. He reaches out to tuck a lock of Richard's hair back, marveling at his gratitude, to know how soft it feels.

"Richard," asks Jared, "may I tell you something about myself?"

"Yeah, of course. Why. I mean - what do you want to tell me?"

"Everything," Jared answers, and that is exactly what he does, all night, the two of them taking turns holding each other, until the first birds of the morning begin to sing. It doesn't feel so much like a shameful confession, not like it has in the past. And when they lie together after, all of Jared's secrets hanging between them in the air, Richard rests his head in the spot where Jared's chest indents slightly, tracing unreadable patterns with his fingers on Jared's pale expanse of skin, and asks,

"Do I make you happy?" 

"Richard." Jared lifts his head from the pillow, looking down at Richard in disbelief. He clicks his tongue. _Tut, tut._ So serious. Admonishing a little, but kind.

"I, um," Richard presses on, undaunted, though his voice catches on the next words he means to say. "I just - it's hard to believe that I could ever do the right thing. Is it, um. Is it. Am I. I mean the stuff we do" - he gestures between their bodies - "is it good for you?"

"Oh, Richard," Jared sighs. And he turns Richard onto his back and kisses his answer into his neck, his chest, his stomach, the insides of his thighs.

_Yes yes yes yes yes._

\--

It stops being a secret. Well, it stops being a secret that they're together. Some of the things they do stay safely between them. 

Richard says "I love you" for the first time one morning, and it isn't even one of the days when Jared brings him breakfast and a half-caf in bed. Jared wonders if he could get used to this: being kept around - for good maybe, getting the things he wants, after working very hard for them, being loved not just for the things he does, but for the person he is. The oddness of his desires. For all of it. 

_Perhaps I could_ , Jared thinks.


End file.
